Ethanol is “Ugly Baby”
Ethanol is “an ugly baby but it’s ours and it will move cars,” according to billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens.
Speaking at the Oil and Gas Investor’s Energy Capital Forum in Houston Tuesday, Boone emphasized that he prefers the less-than-perfect fuel over imported oil because there is “no question” that America must embrace alternate energy sources to alleviate the $700-billion transfer of wealth out of the country to oil imports.
Pickens says the United States is having an energy crisis and that should be the top campaign issue in the presidential election. “Energy is not a debate; it’s a crisis for this country,” Pickens said. “We cannot continue down the path were on. It’s that desperate.”
Pickens said he plans to elevate the issue into this year’s presidential election campaign through a series of television ads talking about energy.
He noted that the country currently spends $700 billion annually to import oil and that could increase to $10 trillion annually within the next decade unless something changes.
9 Comments »
JM
It’s too bad our Government is not as smart at T. Boone Pickens, Dr. Robert Zubrin or Brazil. Otherwise they would have aggressively promoted Ethanol years ago, now we’re all paying the piper. It’s almost impossible for the economy to avoid a deep recession especially here in Silicon Valley California where we’re still waiting for the Terminator to put in the 1st e85 fueling station but he promises us hydrogen cars in the future. We don’t want our cars capable of launching to the moon eh.
Billy Shelby
My main question is ” will ethanol run cleaner in my Flexfeul Chevy Silverado pickup and will I get better purformance as it relates to mpg”.
Thank you,
Billy Shelby
Cindy Zimmerman
Billy,
You can check the fuel economy for specific makes and models of vehicles at http://www.fueleconomy.gov.
Paul Everitt
Corn based ethanol is a very bad idea all the way around. I was in Lafayette, Colorado on 06/13/08 and saw that heavily subsidized E85 is selling for more that regular gasoline. Comparing the US, which is using corn (starch) based ethanol with Brazil, which is using sugar cane (sugar) based ethanol is not valid. Brazil is on the Equator and has a continual growing season. They also had to cut down vast tracks of the Amazon Rain Forest to do this too. Maybe someone on this board can tell me why we are not growing sugar beets for ethanol instead of corn.
Cindy Zimmerman
Paul,
I find it hard to believe anyone sells E85 for more than regular unleaded, but anything is possible.
Corn ethanol is a good idea if we want to get to the second generation of ethanol. Corn ethanol is helping to build the infrastructure and demand an get the vehicles on the road so that it will be in place when cellulosic ethanol becomes commercially viable.
Simple answer to your question – it costs more to produce sugar beets than it does to produce corn.
James Zollman
Paul,
All the sugarcane in Brazil for the 100% alcohol fuel in Brazil is grown in the southern region of Brazil (Sao Paulo state is probably the largest producer) that consists of high plains ideal for growing crops and grazing cattle The Amazon Rain Forest in the North of of Brazil. Far, Far away where sugarcane is grown on a mass scale. I find it funny that people think Brazil is one big rain forest. Brazil has the second largest network if highways of any country in the world, second only to the U.S.
Marc Olivier
My question on product, infrastructure, demand and availability of raw material, is this. Where are we in regard to biomass-based fuel? I’ve seen commercials and newsclips relating to production of fuel from algae; there’s also tons of grass clippings, seaweed, and of course, human waste. It will all produce methane under the right conditions, and there is something out there called methanol. We’ve had a “space race” in the ’60′s, we need a comparable concentration of effort on fuel, food, education and fast-growing renewable resources (plant-based). I can only find serious discussion of this stuff on obscure websites, not mainstream media, and certainly not among our political candidates.
Mike
Ethanol is not perfect, but it is:
– RENEWABLE
– DOMESTIC (our money stays HERE)
– CLEANER than gasoline
– CHEAPER to produce than gasoline
That’s all I need to know.
Valerie Parkhurst
Ok I am an idiot and not a energy tycoon….can someone please tell me how we could have possibly gotten so vested in an alternative source of “energy” that is destroying the guts inside our engines?
Is the train of thought, any and everything but fossil fuels id OK?
Ethanol has got to be the biggest hoax played on the US consumer I have ever heard of. Pickens makes a lot of noise on wind and gas, I am curious, was he waiting for this country to fall on its face banking on ethanol so his company would look good?
Something doesnt sit right with me today, Pickens isnt a stupid man, but why couldnt he make noise on ethanol (before our engines started crumbling)
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